Advancers outnumbered decliners 747 to 557 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on volume of about 271 million shares.

Eight of the TSE's 10 sector gauges were moving higher led by a 1.8 percent rise in energy as crude prices set another record as a smaller than expected climb in U.S. supplies and a drop in distillate stocks fueled concerns that the oil market may not be able to meet demand this winter.

November crude closed up 93 cents at $52.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the first futures close above $52 ever. See Futures Movers.

The health care sector led on the downside with a 0.3 percent loss.

The Information technology sector recovered and ended the day up 0.4 percent after being pulled down by a plunge of more than 21 percent in shares of Open Text (OTC).

The Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of network software was downgraded by at least five brokers after it warned late Tuesday that unclosed deals in its fiscal first quarter will hurt financial results.

The company said it now expects a loss of 1 to 4 cents a share, or earnings of 3 to 6 cents a share on an adjusted basis, on sales of between $84 million and $86 million. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call had expected earnings of 11 cents a share, on average, for the period. See full story.

In other news, Ad Opt Technologies (AOP) climbed C$1.34, or 28 percent, after Kronos Inc.
KRON
said it made a cash tender offer for the Montreal-based company. Kronos will pay C$68.2 million, or C$6.25 per Ad Opt share.

Also gaining ground was Spectrum Signal Processing Inc. (SSY) on news its flexComm HCDR-1000 platform for the development of an Ultra High Frequency Characterization System was selected by the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command for use in analyzing interference patterns and thereby enabling the development of interference mitigation techniques for improved satellite communications.

In the latest news on the economy, Statistics Canada reported that the value of building permits fell 4.6 percent to C$4.5 billion in August as both residential and non-residential sectors posted declines.

The Canadian dollar was at 79.40 cents versus the U.S. dollar, up from 79.27 cents at Tuesday's close. See Currencies.

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